Let us go back to 26 November 1998. On that sad date Doug Ibbotson passed away. For those of a certain age, his columns in WCM were an entertaining and enlightening read. For the vast majority on here, you probably didn’t have a scooby who he was until this week. I’m not au fait with all the facts but I do believe his column in WCM was taken over by one Paul Newman. Now there’s a name we know and cherish. Invoking Doug Ibbotson’s legacy is up there with the most bizarre items of the last year in blogging, and I’ve had a few.
OK. So we’ve seen the events of the last 24 hours. John tweeted me a silly message. I took a little bit of umbrage at it, and replied. Then I got, frankly, a ton of old twaddle from John, objecting to my use of a picture of venerable old Doug as this blog’s “blavatar”. I’ve replaced it with one of Allan Stanford now, and am expecting a tweet from Norman Collier or Giles Clarke to say I’m reminding them of their dealings with this crook.
Then you lot stepped in. Thanks for the support and all that, but there’s no need, and while what you write is your own responsibility, I am not going to be split from the support I get. We all have views and I don’t agree with all of you all the time. I don’t want this to be an echo chamber. For personal reasons, I am not keen on Hillsborough references, for example. One thing doing this blog is that I’ve developed a marginally thicker skin, and am very solid in my position in writing my own views on the administration of the game in this country. I hear a lot of things that no-one told me about last year. I share them with you, or at least cast my views in weighing up the position at time. I’m not actually bothered at all by the “quite unpleasant” stuff because that’s water off a duck’s back. I’m not popular, I know that, among our writers such as they are bothered, but ask those who do talk to me online and they’ll give you a different view, I’m sure.
I am bothered with the bit John left out of his comment this morning – the bit about “guesswork”. This is one stage away from “conspiracy theorists” and our pigeonholing as a bunch of tin foil hat merchants. I’m not that and very comfortable in my own skin in that regard. Being challenged is still tricky for me, but I’m not underestimating the support behind me. As KP would say “it’s very humbling” (as would Stuart Broad). For instance, I’ve contended on here since the Dean Wilson tweet last year when he revealed that Downton was very approachable behind the scenes, that Downton was an awful public performer. I have said, at times, it is cowardice. I’ve said it all year long, despite the media assuring us in the early days he was “nice old Paul” and that he would be a refreshing new face. Now we see the media really turning on him for ducking out of the last press conference and sticking Joe Root up. Brenkley, who I’ve really laid into, was spot on in his piece (I don’t want to hate reporters, in the same way I don’t want to hate anyone). My “guesswork” seems to have been slightly more accurate than those who have their jobs in this industry. It might be luck, it probably is, but I negotiate in my day job and you need to try to read people – I suspect most of us do – and he seemed an obvious all style, no substance type to me.
We “guess” because you’ve been proved wrong, reporters, and with few exceptions we find it hard to take what is said without feeling let down. I’m incredibly pissed off that this Graves comment has focused on KP and not on the potential impact at the organisation he takes over. So we have more attack pieces on Pietersen – today’s one in the Guardian about pouring scorn on England is rich – and Selfey’s lament yesterday being the only one to really focus on Downton that I’ve seen. Yes, I read John’s piece in the Sun, too.
I say it once, I’ll say it again. This is not about KP, it’s about how the game is run, and how fans are excluded by many manners of means. Some try to paint me as something I am not (a KP fanboy – I love his batting, thought him being dropped was terribly wrong, and not sure I want to see him back). It’s not being bought here. I don’t doubt how little influence I have, but it’s funny how our agenda points still keep being raised. A year on “outside cricket” is still going strong. I suspect “positive influence” will be joining it. I’m certainly the first, and doubt I’m the second. But we are still here, different venue, same points.
Thanks for all the supportive comments. I’ll buy you a beer if we ever should meet……
(Note – this post was written on a mobile connection so no bells and whistles. Any edits will be this evening, where I’ll try to keep up with you lot and watch some more of Season 2 of House of Cards.)
PS – John, I lost my wallet in Adelaide in 2006. If you find it, lost in Glenelg, then please keep it safe for me.
Being Outside Cricket 
For the sake of clarity, I didn’t respond to him to support you, or to try to speak for you – that would every bit as wrong as him presuming to speak for Doug Ibbotson.
I responded because I don’t like bullies and I don’t like hypocrites. Full stop.
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Aware of that. I’d say supporting the blog and all who write on it was the message I tried to convey.
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I responded to Etheridge purely for my own reasons. I do not like his conduct and comments and have taken him to task before on your previous blog as well as on The Full Toss.
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Thank you for your lack of support! 🙂
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🙂
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You can rely on us to put the boot into you. For you I meant, obviously. For you….
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Thank you Vian. 🙂
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What gets me is that he mentioned that he was amused at the lack of perspective. Firstly I wonder if he ever bothered reading the Selvey article to wonder why it got disavowed by a large number of posters are hacked off at the myopia of his comments/point of view. That would help in understanding the perspective of a large number of cricket loving folk who are flabbergasted about a number of decisions that the ECB have made and the lack of critical analysis that the organisation and key members of it have received.
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One feels that the role of Colin Gibson might be about to come under closer scrutiny.
He hardly distinguished himself at the FA where he was forced out over his handling of the Faria Alam affair with Sven and the FA’s Chief Exec Palios.
The profile of English cricket has hardly gone forwards since he was appointed in 2005 and besides the disastrous mishandling of the KP saga there might be a few pointed questions as to why cricket doesn’t have the profile where there are broadcasters fighting over the TV rights.
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Hasn’t he gone?
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Yes, confirmed in the last paragraph of yet another KP piece in the Graun.
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Apologies, it seems so.
Can’t find the KP article Moggy refers to (there are too many to choose from!) but Google throws up a Charlie Sale piece in the Mail from January which says
“The remarkable culling of the over-50s at the England Cricket Board continues with the departure of communications chief Colin Gibson.
Replacements already in the frame are 40-somethings Will Chignell — who survived the 2011 Rugby World Cup debacle so well that England cricket chief Paul Downton went to Twickenham to study the RFU PR operation — and Chris Haynes, the robotic former Sky Sports spokesman who never went off Isleworth message in 20 years.”
It doesn’t seem to be a promotion as it seems from linkedin he’s gone from that to Deputy Director of Communications at Baku 2015 European Games Operation Committee.
I can’t see anything saying someone has been appointed – and there aren’t any vacancies according to the ECB on their web-site, but maybe if the job hasn’t been filled updating the web-site is part of their responsibilities…..
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Can’t find it either. But did read elsewhere that various people are re-applying for their jobs as part of management shake up.
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I’m not in PR or marketing but a good friend of mine is. He continually expresses utter astonishment at the ineptitude of how the ECB go about things, saying he’d be looking to move on a 2 year junior exec for doing it this badly.
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Yay. Makes sense that Vian. When the ECB hierarchy decide to put Joe Root in the media firing line I should think that says everything you need to know about these utter morons. How Downton has lasted this long just amazes me. When you have Brenkley talking about Clarke’s “sneering” at the press then you know that something is deeply wrong.
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The Guardian (no name attached) maintaining their lovely level of balance in reporting any of the cricket news: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/03/kevin-pietersen-england-team-selection
“Kevin Pietersen scorns England team selection to put rapprochement on hold”
Seriously, Guardian sports desk: Grow up. KP is entitled to give his opinion on the team. God knows you give your opinion on him.
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I don’t remember the Guardian saying the same when Swann got his knife in or the attack on the England team by Nasser Hussain. Typical also that the Guardian could come up with a title that bears very little reflection on what KP actually said. That title could have and actually might have come out of the Derek Pringle drawer of OTT Headlines. Obviously haven’t read any other reports have they? I despair with these awful pieces paraded as journalism. Contemptible!
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Can someone enlighten me as to what useful purpose cricket “writers” serve?
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Good ones find things out and tell us about it – even if the ECB wish they hadn’t.
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Nick Hoult and George Dobell are good cricket writers. Hoult scoops his rivals time and again and is not embarrassed about reporting news that might trouble the authorities if he feels it is in the interest of his readers. Dobell is a similarly trenchant commentator who is able to see the wood for the trees. I would also put a word in for Atherton.
Mike Selvey is a reasonably good interpreter of on-field action but patently has no interest in informing his readers of the wider context in which England play their cricket. In some cases the line he has delivered on, say, the internal machinations of the ECB could just as easily have been drafted by the ECB press office. And when he gets challenged on this he responds with condescension and (ironically) the occasional bit of ugly abuse.
As for the rest of the embedded press, the overwhelming impression I get is of an insular clique, just like certain vintages of the England cricket team. They work by consensus, share multiple prejudices and would rather maintain ‘relationships’ with ‘influential people’ than inform their readership of what is going on. There are individual exceptions, but systematically this is the impression I get of their coverage.
We shouldn’t forget though that their influence is ultimately limited. The only reason the Pietersen issue keeps arising is that people other than the embedded press have been hammering away at it and also linking it to the wider malaise of English cricket in general, and how this relates to some of the decisions the ECB has made not just in the last year but over the entire Clarke era. Because they are embedded, most of the reporters lack this “outside cricket” perspective and an ability to see the bigger picture.
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I’ll still pop in a word for someone who isn’t one of Dmitri’s favourites, but is mine, and that’s the general sports journalist Jonathan Liew. His match reports on England during the disaster of the World T20 were wickedly funny, full of sarcastic reminders of what England said and what they did.
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Vian, Jonathan Liew has written some excellent pieces (like on FTA sport in January) but he can also disappear far off the reservation – most spectacularly with this one which read like Ed Smith after the thirteenth glass of port:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/11297048/Alastair-Cook-at-the-mercy-of-sacking-culture-as-Englands-critics-attempt-to-satisfy-their-lust-for-change.html
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No one’s perfect!
I thought at the time that article was him trying very hard to put the alternate viewpoint and struggling somewhat.
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I have no idea where this post will turn up, since the reply option is a bit of a mystery.
This is intended as a reply to Vian and Simon. For what it is worth, I quite like Jonathan Liew. He exhibits stylistic and imaginative flourishes that are similar to Barney Ronay before Ronay got caught up with trying to impress us all with how clever and hip he is. Liew has a bit of the, say, @Vitu_E non-conformity about him. The Telegraph is not my political portal of choice, but its sports writers are absolutely owning the “back pages” at the moment.
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That Guardian piece was credited to the Press Association newswire. Don’t all weskits lift their stuff?
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websites, I meant websites…
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A fascinating insight into your learned predictive text there sire. Off hunting at the weekend?
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So Broad has had his say:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/03/kevin-pietersen-england-stuart-broad-cricket-world-cup
I actually have sympathy with him saying it’s not what they needed, because it isn’t. But it’s not relevant to them either – and it’s still a result of what they did and didn’t do before. If they were winning it wouldn’t matter.
As for the stuff about now not paying attention to stats, that’s a kneejerk response. You don’t have to ignore them totally, you just have to know the value of them and not be ruled by them.
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Oh and by the way, he speaks courtesy of Hardy’s Wines. During a World Cup. FFS.
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No problems with what Broad says. I did enjoy the comment about Swann and Trott.
I’d also rather him speak courtesy of a wine company (albeit an Australian wine company) than a betting company like others do.
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I’d rather they be allowed to speak, and it not be viewed as an excuse to make money. Speaking to the press and public is not a marketing opportunity, it’s an obligation.
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Yes, the last thing England need during a World Cup is a distraction, says Stuart Broad, kitted out in a Hardy’s wine cap and Hardy’s chequered shirt posing at a sponsor’s photoshoot and answering media questions at a sponsor’s PR day held in a vineyard ahead of a must win game.
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I have a problem when Broad spouts guff like “we have to genuinely get tight as a group” and “now is the time for us to find our identity”.
How about addressing things that mean something on a cricket field like why can Southee and Starc swing the ball and England can’t?
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I have a problem with another article saying “South African born” as a lazy tag for Pietersen.
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Best example of that was two years ago with the Pietersen, Strauss and Flower episode – where in article after article, only one was repeatedly called “South African-born”.
Said it at the time – the moment Stokes had any problems, he’d become “New Zealand-born”. You are now seeing with Morgan it’s “Dublin-born”. So predictable.
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BBC did it too…
“But Yorkshire chairman Graves, who takes up his ECB post in May, suggested the South African-born batsman might be considered for England duty again if he scored a lot of runs in county cricket.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/31706524
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Broad also said this according to Nick Hoult, “We don’t have natural ‘out there’ guys at all. Everyone’s lovely. Everyone’s really nice. If you put them all in a room together for five days and have a beer there wouldn’t be a bad word said. Sometimes you need a bit of ‘that’ in the field. Did you notice the other day in the field when it looked a bit dead out there? Jimmy and I came in from the boundary to the middle just to try to create a bit of uncomfortableness for the batsmen.”
A few points about this:
1) Is there any English sporting fiasco that isn’t put down at some stage to being too nice? “If only our boys didn’t try to stay on their feet – unlike those foul continentals. Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard are just too honest for their own good” etc etc.
2) Maybe there wouldn’t be “a bad word said” because the last guy who did was sacked.
3) If you need a bit of ‘that’ how are New Zealand doing so well? I’ve watched all their matches in the WC and a lot of them this year and can’t think of any ‘that’ from them. McCullum applauds opposition landmarks which England never do. Maybe success has more to do with stuff like talent and strategy than ‘that’?
4) How did the creation of that “bit of uncomfortableness” for the Sri Lankan batsmen go?
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I hadn’t spotted that bit Simon. It’s quite astonishing he had the nerve to say that when of all the England bowlers it’s him and Anderson in particular who are serving up a big dollop of poo every game.
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Stuart Broad was with Hardys Wine at their Tintara Winery, selecting the wines to be sold at this summer’s Ashes series. http://www.hardyswines.com
I’ve just seen that as well, made my blood boil. Shouldn’t Mr Humble be practising, i don’t bowling or batting or something NOT selecting fucking wines for this summers steamrollering.
Glad to have found you again Dmitri, i hope you are well
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It’s not his choice. It’s a marketing thing he has to fulfil for the ECB.
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I can only imagine the derision which would be heaped on certain other ex-England cricketers with South African roots if they gave an interview on condition of a big mention for the sponsor at the end of it.
Mercenary. Money grubber. Only in it for himself. T20 globetrotting cash follower.
You know the kind of thing. But even-handedness is for the little people, eh?
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@NorthernLights – especially if it was a South African wine company.
Imagine the headlines.
“Pietersen shuns hard-working English vineyards”
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As I said on the thread Vian, the ECB shouldn’t be expecting him to do this at this juncture. It’s not as though his batting is anything to write home about and his bowling is totally shot to bits.
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That is what I said Moossyn on the thread. This shouldn’t be happening during a world cup tournament. Blimey ECB really do need a massive change in order to get the team focusing on the game. It comes to something when in one breath Broad says he doesn’t need the distraction of the KP stuff coming up now but then in the next breath is telling us all how he was off advertising for a wine club. Now I don’t know about you boys but I find that somewhat, “man who speak with fork tongue!”
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Dmitri I am sorry if you did not like the Deaths of the Liverpool fans brought into this. I was the one who brought that up. However it was in response to his pompous moral claptrap about you having a picture of a decent joirnalist on a site he does not like. As you say it is your site and you can defend yourself. But I am not prepared to be given moral lectures from a Murdoch lackey.
Etheridge and Selvey and many others bought into the Downton doctrine 12 months ago. The Downton doctrine said that removing KP was all that was needed to turn English cricket into a rosy garden. The roses would be blooming and the smell sweeter than ever. Etheridge was a follower and a pusher of this snake oil clap trap. We on the outside of cricket saw through this rubbish, and we saw it was a stitch up. KP was scapegoated to cover up the real villains. Etheridge failed to see this and bought the cool aide. Now he and his mates have been left with great dollops of egg all over their faces as the England cricket team decends into meltdown and farce. KP is not in the team and it has become a laughing stock. Etheridge, Selvey, Newmam now own this shower of shite.
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Etheridge could get some respect by doing some reporting, a la Dobell.
But that seems to be something he doesn’t want to do.
And the comparison with Dobell rather makes it objectively very plain that there’s a job out there to be done and Etheridge is choosing not to do it.
From there it’s hard not to get all Freudian about his motives.
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Hypothesis: various actors with information to provide within the England setup who are unhappy with the way the management are going know very well because they are not dumb which journalists they would rather talk to.
So it’s a vicious cycle. You parrot the management line too much then after a while the management line (and management leaks) are all you have access to.
There’s a sorta event horizon there. Selvey’s probably past it. You can see maybe some of the others trying to crawl away from it.
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I’m no fan of his, but this did make me laugh:
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It’s got nothing to do with Broad who plays in the team. He is not a selector. He should shut up and get in the nets and start doing his job of bowling better lengths.
This all plays to what KP said in his book about a mafia of bowlers thinking they run the team. The rumour has always been that other players were thrown out because their faces didn’t fit with certain members of the the team.
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Who was it on Sky the other night who said there was (or had been, I can’t remember which) a definite division in the team between the batsmen and the bowlers?
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It is astounding how Broad could undermine the incoming chairman ?
Also what does this mean: “Now is the time for us to find our identity, rather than not worrying about what everyone else is doing.” or ““I have been looking at things like where Dilshan’s strong areas are and where shouldn’t you bowl to Sangakkara, but actually from now on I’m not interested in that. I’m going to run in and bowl what I’m good at.”
He is not for real is he?
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and this reminds me of something : “”On our iPads there is a dossier on the other teams “
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“”On our iPads there is a dossier on the other teams “
The NSA are probably copying it and sending it to the opposition.
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Well Me Lord might not need support but you will get it anyway, whether you like it or not. What would we have done in the past 14 months if not for your blog and The Full Toss. It’s been brilliant. Cheers Me Lord. You are brilliant
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Just about every commentator has been saying these things about the England cricket team – (1) the personnel is not right, (2) the order is not right, (3) the team is constipated by stats. When Pietersen dares to repeat a truth obvious to everyone and disseminated by all, the press pick on him as undermining the team. I totally despair. It is either a malevolent agenda or clickbait. What it aint is journalism.
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Yes, but it is funny because they have always accused us of being only about KP. “Just a bunch of nutters with only one issue they care about.”
They should look in the mirror because it appears they are the REAL one trick ponies. They have completely ignored the farce that is the ECB. Everything is about justifying the removal of KP. The eulogising of Cook, Downton, Moores is all about defending the only thing that mattered. Driving a giant wooden stake through KPs heart.
Swift would have had a field day as these little people try to pull down a giant.
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Mark, that comment ” driving a giant wooden stake into KP’s heart” probably isn”‘t that far from the truth. It hurts me to think that.They knock him down and he gets up till the next time and then they knock him down again.He’s a young man, sensitive loves his cricket and it must be so humiliating at times the things said to him and done to him.Lucky he has so much support from friends and family because it seems impossible he would cope otherwise People don’t seem to think he’s human and he hurts just like anyone else just because he doesn’t show it.The ECB has to be cleaned out.KP is not the only cricketer they have tried to destroy.
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That Stuart Broad interview was very strange.
In his defence, the Grauniad has deliberately misrepresented it quite badly – as just one example, they’ve doctored a quote:
According to the Guardian he said:
“When we were at our best, we had characters like Trotty and Swanny. They couldn’t give a crap what anyone else was doing.”
What he actually said on BBC Five Live was:
When we were at our best, we had characters like Trotty and Swanny AND KEV. They couldn’t give a crap what anyone else was doing.”
A small point, but the journalist is deliberately trying to make it seem as though Broad was having a dig at KP elsewhere in the interview.
Actually his point re. KP was fair enough – essentially, ‘We’re in the middle of a World Cup, it’s background noise, we don’t need the distraction and whether he plays well in June and July is not our concern at the moment.’ He couldn’t really have said anything but “It’s not something we’re fussed about.” And in referencing KP as one of the senior players who “didn’t give a crap about what anyone else was saying”, he sounded genuine.
What is worthy of criticism is his bizarre comments about (a) how to bowl at opposition players and (b) why the team should totally ignore everyone else.
On the latter point, for instance, he said:
“Maybe we’ve been guilty of listening to other people…We know what’s best for us, our coach knows what’s best for us.”
Stuart, on the evidence of the four games so far, both you and the coach haven’t got a fucking clue what’s best for you. You’ve taken two wickets all tournament, as has your best mate and fellow opening bowler, and you’re collectively bowling like a total drain. The coach is playing to a template that’s at least five years out of date, the selection is dogshit, and the whole thing stinks of last-minute indecision followed by a stubborn refusal to admit one’s mistakes. The fact that countless former players and ex-captains are criticising the side is probably an indication that the coaches’ and players’ views aren’t necessarily the right ones, and it might actually do the team good to take on board some of the (often constructive) criticism.
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Wow. If unambiguously the case, that misquote would (at least in US journalistic practice) I think be broadly considered requiring a formal correction. The NYT would issue a correction the next day for it, I believe.
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I agree. Might send another missive to the reader’s editor about that one…
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Interesting that Nick Hoult carries the same quote as the Guardian. I don’t believe he would have deliberately changed it.
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I’ve seen about 5 Broad stories in short succession. wtf is going on?
There’s “Stuart Broad: Alex Hales could help to revive England’s World Cup form ” ; “Kevin Pietersen debate is the last thing England need, says Stuart Broad” ; “Stuart Broad still suffers ‘nightmares’ after facial injury”, “Stuart Broad rejects claims England are ‘playing with fear'”, “Stuart Broad admits England squad is ‘too nice'”
Is Stuart Broad the new ECB Press Officer? Is this all coming from one interview, or a series? Is Stuart Broad running this (of so, why?) or the ECB (if so, what are they trying to achieve?)
What he’s said has hardly done the confidence of Gary Ballance any good, one would imagine…
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Also – I’m up for an ‘Outside cricket’ beer sometime in London if others are. Needs a bit of forward planning to get a free pass for the evening.
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